You can file this as another episode of how Vigo's plight is your entertainment.
Like most of the country, I was blanketed in snow over the last few days. It wasn't too bad of a snowstorm here, but there is the small issue that I live in a house that is older than Ethel Merman. Well, without fail my roof started leaking again from the snow melt yesterday. Since my roof is a break-your-neck-in-5-places kind of steep, I set off to my attic crawl space to caulk up the leak from in inside of the house.
This is a huge ordeal, since the hatch to my crawl space is only about as wide as the keyboard I am typing on.It is an acrobatic feat to worm myself in this tiny hole in the closet ceiling. I work my way in and bring along 3 tubes of outdoor caulk sealant to plug the leak. Well, I found the hole in the roof pretty easily, but let me just say: Caulk gets old. Caulk expires. Do not store caulk for more than a couple years. It was not until I opened that first tube that I realized I had brought some nasty, old caulk. The caulk was firm like it should be, but runny whitish goo with the consistancy of Arby's sauce. Completely horrid rubbish. I mean the minute I tried to apply it, it dropped off of the roof slat and onto the insulation below.
This is the point in time where I factored in whether I wanted to do a good job, or just get the job done quickly. I don't exactly like contort myself in and out of that hatch, so getting new caulk was too much of a chore. Since this a crawl space in a house from the early 19th century that I plan on selling in a year, the lazy route won over and I decided to spray caulk all over the hole, and in between the roof slats. In 3 minutes flat I had caulk dripping all over the place, but at least I had that hole covered up.
So back to the point, (which has nothing to do with what you were all thinking, get your mind out of that gutter
). My wife popped her head in the hatch to see if I needed anything (3 minutes too late
) and I told her to get me some new caulk and traps for Satan's pet Squirrel that made a home in the attic. (That's a different story) She comes back with the traps and some good old silicone sealant, which is what I should have been using from the beginning if I didn't have so much damn caulk to go through. kneeling parallel along a couple ceiling joists I lean over to set the trap. That's when I heard a horrid creak come from the drywall below (the plaster ceiling had been replaced at some point).
Well, that sound completely paralyzed me, I sat motionless for about 5 seconds before shrugging the sound off as a "creepy old house noise". That's when it happened. The 8 feet of Drywall below me caved in completely and fell into the room below. Here I am on my hands and knees straddling floor joists, witnessing drywall, insulation and squirrel feces crash down into the baby's room below. Thank God neither of my kids were there, but the problem was that nobody was around at all, because at that moment I realized that a rainfall of caulk was starting to drip onto the carpet, crib and baby clothes below. I'm a married guy, that means I know full well that my life depends on the carpet and baby stuff not getting damaged due to my own dumb lazy caulk job.
Being crammed in a crawl space above a gaping hole with no mobility and nothing nearby to grab, my Macgyver prowess to block the caulk was simply not there. Maybe there were other options, but I couldn't think of anything. I did the only thing that I could think of. I began to catch the caulk-drip with my head. Screaming at the top of my lungs for my wife to come and help, all the while caulk is dripping down my hair. My World-record Snacks 'n Jaxson skills came into play, as I used my face as a paddle to catch the falling caulk with immense precision. It was a good 5 minutes before wife heard me and came to help. By then most of the caulk had dripped on to me, but I at least had saved the carpet and baby stuff.
So by the time I had gotten out of the crawl space, the caulk was already hardening on my head. To the point where I could either shave my head or go to work the next day looking like a flock a birds crapped all over my head. I shaved my head. As for the ceiling in the baby room....well, I got a weekend project.
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Topic: Life Lesson: Your old caulk can get very drippy. (Read 4797 times)
